April 25 Readers' letters: 'Grapes of Wrath' is a great tool for teaching California children

From Mercury News readers

Posted:
04/24/2014 06:20:35 PM PDT

'Grapes of Wrath' still a reflection of society

As a fourth-grade teacher in Los Altos, I teach California history. I use Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" to show our children where much of our population came from.

Most of the book is too graphic for them, but not chapter 25. Four short pages that summarize the Great Depression and its impact on California. It opens with the glowing statement: The Spring is beautiful in California but ends with tragedy, starvation and greed: "In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

It's a brilliant book, and the column by Leonard Pitts Jr. (Opinion, April 24) was excellent.

I am very disturbed by the dismissive tone of candidate Ro Khanna's supporters. The latest is the letter from Vijaya Raghavan (Letters, April 23). He did not challenge incumbent Rep. Mike Honda's qualifications, personal conviction and integrity or any of his records, but belittled Honda as an "old vacuum tube" that needed to be replaced.

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It is not the first time that I heard from the Khanna camp of this kind of jabs. It seems to be a line right out of their campaign training program.

They should keep in mind that seniors in all geographic areas hold the highest voting rate, while Raghavan's "superior performers" (ages 25 to 40) usually do dismally at the ballot boxes.

Frankly, Raghavan and his campaign buddies rub the old guys like me the wrong way with their attitude of entitlement.

Khanna needs to earn our votes.

Youth is not always a source of cure.

Ignatius Y. Ding

Cupertino

Liccardo does what's right for San Jose

Scott Herhold is doing a real service to voters through his series of profiles on candidates for mayor. I enjoyed his recent piece on Sam Liccardo and think he touched on an important characteristic of Sam's -- one big reason why he has my support in this campaign.

Throughout the article, the reader gets the sense that Liccardo is someone who is willing to work with anyone to get the job done, but at the same time is a person of strong principles. I personally can attest that this is the case and have seen it at work in Sam's efforts to control pension costs.

Sam waded into this thicket when too many other politicians were happy to stand on the sides and demagogue without proposing any reasonable solutions. Many people were unhappy with the package of reforms that ultimately passed, but Sam stood his ground and did what was right for San Jose.

Leadership is more than sound bites; it's about action. Sam Liccardo has and continues to show he's a person who will act to fix the problems we face.

Frank Penrose

San Jose

Will should take House GOP antics to task

I have to laugh when the erudite George Will finds President Barack Obama speaking style unstatesmanlike when addressing a college audience in their vernacular (Opinion, April 24). One can only wonder how Will can ignore the recent juvenile antics and inaccuracies of the Republican House members, such as Missouri's Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment or Texas' Louie Gohmert's numerous silly rantings or the numskull 54 votes taken in the House to repeal ACA. Perhaps Will is more concerned that Obamacare is gaining support in stalwart red state strongholds while Republicans only play lip service to young and minority voters.

Warren Seifert

Gilroy

Invest more in schools to improve equality

Based on the affirmative actions of the past (Editorial, April 23), we have made tremendous progress in achieving gender and race equality. Despite this, the representation for blacks, Latinos and women in the industry and STEM related fields is very low. We are also seeing rapidly shrinking middle class. The working poor now earn less than the cost of living. The odds of getting out of poverty for kids are getting smaller. We as a society have an obligation to level the playing field for every group. The best way to do this is to provide added resources to K-12 schools in the poor neighborhoods and help the underrepresented kids to succeed. We all have a role to play in making this a reality.

Mohan Raj

San Jose

Money is a megaphone, not a form of speech

The Republicans, masters of deceit, dishonesty and massive self-interest, have declared that money is speech with the Supreme Court assenting in the recent McCutcheon decision. Money is not speech, it merely amplifies speech. The wealthy have no problem getting their voices heard, but their insistence on screaming out their message at earsplitting decibel levels prevents the rest of us from being heard. Our priority must be to ensure that all voices can be heard, not that those with the most money have unlimited power to monopolize the conversation about today's critical issues.